Page 31 - Classical Chinese Furniture from Heveningham Hall may 28 2021 hk.pdf

Sarah Handler in Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Several examples of similar huanghuali stools dated to the 17th
Berkeley, 2001, pp. 82-102, evocatively explains the development of century are known, including a pair in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
the use of the stool and its subsequent derivations and developments illustrated by Robert D. Jacobsen and Nicholas Grindley in Classical
into chair forms. The author cites the earliest known depiction of the Chinese Furniture, Minneapolis, 1999, pp. 38-9, no. 2. Another, albeit
Chinese stool as an engraved fragment found on an incised bronze smaller rectangular huanghuali stool dated to the Ming dynasty,
vessel from the Eastern Zhou period (770-221 B.C.). There appear to from the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts, is illustrated by Wang
be few remaining examples of ancient Chinese stools, but we do begin Shixiang in Classic Chinese Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties,
to see representations again in Buddhist art in the fourth and fifth Hong Kong, 1986, p. 61, no. 15. See, also, Connoisseurship of Chinese
centuries A.D. Handler, explains, ibid., "In a formal sense, every chair or Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, vol. II, 1990, Hong Kong,
table has a stool in it, even though additional elements may disguise p. 23, no. A16 and vol. I, pp. 27-31, where the author discusses the
the essential underlying form. Adding armrests conclusively changes a general form. Compare, also, the pair of similarly dated stools of almost
stool into a chair: expanding the dimensions of the stool's top produces identical height, but much smaller width and depth, sold at Christie’s,
a table. The stool's principle of support remains the same. The modest Hong Kong, 28 November 2012, lot 2007.
stool is ubiquitous and practical, and in the Chinese imagination has
also made it beautiful in shape and surface."

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